Such was the number and variety of responses to this challenge that presenting a detailed breakdown of one such solution – as has been the case for all of the first eleven in this series of challenges – would, I feel, be somewhat inappropriate.

For the majority of these challenges, it could be argued that there has been one solution which is indisputably “better” than the rest. Perhaps such an adjudication can also be made here, though to do so would certainly not be a straightforward exercise. What’s more, to pick just one of the many solutions would be to leave the rest – unfairly in my opinion – left on the sidelines.

As such, I would refer the readers to the many solutions in that post and to enjoy dissecting the varied and wonderful constructions therein. And to simply thank all those – Alex, aMareis, Maxim, John Jairo, sam, Jeff, Lori, Ron, Michael, Christian and XLarium – whose excellent contributions led to such a fruitful and inspiring discussion.

There’s evidently still much to be discovered in the world of worksheet formulas!

At the time of writing (Saturday morning, UK time; apologies if anyone has submitted something after that date), two correct solutions received (or three if you count non-Excel-based ones: as he has done for most of the recent challenges, Isai Alvarado produced a solution applicable to Google Sheets, which, as usual, I am unable to verify! So I’m taking your word for it that it’s perfectly correct, Isai! 🙂 ).

The two correct entries came courtesy of Snakehips, who gave a rather lengthy but perfectly correct solution, and John Jairo V, who improved upon his earlier attempt by producing a solution which, in essence, used a similar approach to Snakehips’ but which made use of some very nice technique involving MMULT to considerably abbreviate the required construction. Great work, John!